“The Press Release Is Dead. Let It Rest In Peace!” ID Africa COO Femi Falodun Speaks On The New Age Of Social PR

Jul 31, 2015 | news@bhmng.com

The Abuja Hall, NECA House, Lagos on Wednesday July, 2015 witnessed a fiery exposition of modern Public Relations practice as Marketing expert Femi Falodun delivered a presentation entitled “Who Is Afraid Of Social PR?”

Speaking to an audience of Public Relations practitioners at the NIPR Social Digital Workshop, the ID Africa COO pointedly asserted that the days of conventional media relations in PR are over and have been replaced with communication methods which are increasingly more customized and relatable to each recipient.

In his words, “The era of blind mass emailing and generic press releases is dead and buried – please stop sending out those horrible email blasts! No one reads them anymore! In order to be effective, PR messages now must be targeted, customized & localized based on factors like content type, medium of communication, behavior, education and interests of target audiences and connections between users.”

Speaking further, he mentioned that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and blogs all compete in the same communications space as PR professionals, making full use of their large semi-captive audiences and integrated targeting options incorporated into the platforms.

“It’s all about social content now. The class, format and nature of your messages can now make or destroy your engagement. We have to speak the language of those we are interacting with. We have to speak to them on the platforms where they are, and if we are not sure how to use those platforms, we must learn. The old press release is dead and it is never coming bacIn closing, he took the audience through a series of infographics demonstrating just how much power social media already has and will yet have as the world becomes more globalized and the so-called ‘Millennials’ become the larger part of the spending population.

The Digital Workshop, which was one of the activities marking the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations AGM Week featured presentations from Communications and marketing experts such as Falodun and Orimolade Alexander of Microsoft Nigeria.